


We Need To Talk About The Horror

by B0nk3rs



Series: Bored of Being Nameless [4]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Ben Hargreeves Deserves Better, Female Five Hargreeves, Gen, Gender or Sex Swap, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Luther Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Road Trips, Sober Klaus Hargreeves, Unconventional Format, Vanya Hargreeves Deserves Better, bullet points
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:02:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21977773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B0nk3rs/pseuds/B0nk3rs
Summary: It's not a fullstory but an outline and some ideasFive is a girl and that's the only reason she hasn't left the Academy yet. It's a small difference to the Space-Time continuum that will in no way impact her fate or that of her siblings...well not much.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Everyone, Number Five | The Boy & Allison Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves, The Hargreeves Family
Series: Bored of Being Nameless [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1373155
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And speaking of siblings, the Horror's death needs to happen before the month is up or the Apocalypse is going to happen thirty years later than scheduled!

  * Starts off with the kids on a road trip because who doesn't want to be stuck in a car with their annoying siblings for three hours. Five insisted on driving because God knows they need to practice, last road test she almost crashed into the police.
  * Allison insisted on sitting shotgun- whatever that means. She's plaiting her long curls into pencil-thin strands using the side mirror. Half-way and she started pulling them all out because she got one of them too thick.
  * Klaus is still staring blankly through her when she checks the rearview mirror. 
  * Diego is asleep.



This is where you get a physical description of them. maybe from a third person.

A fancy black car pulls up at the pump next to the Milton's. The back windows are tinted along with the passenger side but Mrs Milton can see that there are two young women inside, one driving and one calmly braiding her hair. Mrs Milton eyes them sceptically while her teenage boys in the back both stop arguing to watch.

The white girl in the driver's seat climbs out, revealing a black leather catsuit with white trim. It looks faintly familiar to all of them but Mrs Milton just purses her lips in disapproval while the oldest of her sons lets his gaze consume her. Her hair is in a messy ponytail and she starts putting gas into the car.

The black girl in the front seat climbs out, she's dressed more conservatively in a gingham dress over a crisp white shirt. Mrs Milton still finds herself stirring with some unnecessary jealousy at the girl's beautiful features. She opens the back doors and orders two boys, one in school uniform and another in a matching black catsuit, out of the car. The three of them traipse out of sight following the girl around their car and the gas station building. 

Mr Milton climbs back into the car, having paid for his gas and then they drive away, forgetting about them just as they hit the highway.

  * Diego drives after the first pitstop, he has nothing to say to either of his sisters.
  * Allison finishes her elaborate hairstyle and pulls down the sun-shield for a closer mirror so she can start doing her makeup.
  * Five changes in the back seat, awkwardly peeling her legs out of leathery kevlar to put on her shirt and dress. It's more bloodstained than anticipated though so she just sits in her shirt and wishes she'd thought to hide a pair of tights under a seat somewhere.
  * Klaus is now just ignoring them all and string out of the window. Every few miles he flinches as they pass a ghost wreck.
  * They stop when it starts getting dark near the border, sending Klaus and Allison to get them dinner, a coat and call Luther.



Now an explanation for why they are on a road trip without Luther or Ben.

Ben isn't coming.

And Five ran out of the back of that hotel like she was being chased, which she was, by something scary, which she was, that a teen superhero couldn't deal with, which she was. And she'd been followed by Luther, who was also running from the same thing. And they'd run into Allison and Diego tying up the unconscious bad guys, and Klaus hovering nervously in the doorway. And she'd run straight passed them out of the lobby, passed the press, passed Dad waiting sternly behind the barricade over to the alleyway where the car was and passed that so she could throw up without anyone watching her. 

And then she turned around to Diego, Allison and Klaus hovering and no press and no Luther or Dad and she'd told them to all get in the fucking car, Luther was going to explain to Dad what happened.

And now her and Diego were cracking shit maths jokes like Five didn't have a line of dried blood where it had seeped through her zipper imprinted on her chest. Like Diego's voice wasn't as intermittent as a broken radio. Like they hadn't gotten into a screaming match ten minutes down the road when she'd told them why they were leaving right now and driving 400 miles to pick up their least favourite sister.

  * Allison had already known, she'd asked Luther. Her eyes were red rimmed and she looked beautiful.
  * Diego had thrown a fit. He didn't believe her. There was no way. It was impossible. It was a not a f-funny joke. F-Five y-y-you fu-uck! Y-you b-b-bitch!
  * She started screaming at him to shut up. Shut up. Shut Up. Shut Up, Shut UP, SHUT UP! Five had parked the car and gotten out expressly to drag Diego out of the car and tell him to shut up with a hand in his collar and his hands touching the wet fabric of her shoulders. Then she got back in the car and he got back in the car and he went to sleep.
  * Klaus doesn't say anything at all. He only looked at her in the mirror, green on green because he'd never done it but he'd kill her if she was playing a joke on him.
  * She wasn't playing a joke on him.




	2. Chapter 2

So where the fuck are they right now? There's a route but I don't know what's on it. Usually, they're in Michigan but they were in Ithaca saving the hotel there and Vanya's school is in Maine so when shit went down Five went "fuck it! I know what it's called, I know where it is and I can't be bothered to fucking call. Who the fuck cares if dad gets her before we do I want to not be here right now."

so they left

but what did they leave behind?

Luther!

The heist!

Dad!

Yay- oh shit.

Time for a cool flashback to yesterday again!

  * Luther is a mess. He's freaking out. He's not supposed to be freaking out, he's supposed to be cool calm and in charge.
  * This is a very big problem.
  * Because, as of ten seconds ago he was the only member of his team around. (Except-)
  * And his sister just drove off in Dad's car with the rest of the team- without him! 



Okay, maybe we should not focus on Luther while he's panicking.

Grace is at home waiting and teaching herself how to knit. The children have personalised scarves already but her hand-eye coordination has been suffering recently so she's knitting. Please ignore the way that Grace's stitches alter in size, colour and consistency despite her ever-steady hands. Please ignore the way this is her seventh scarf, one with the most defects that she's going to pack up like a mistake and ship away. Please don't look too hard at Grace, she's just a machine. 

Pogo is probably waiting downstairs for a call of some kind. anything he can do to help. help the children. help his master. help Grace.

He doesn't dust or clean or read bedtime stories, sleeps two stories down in his own quiet room with his head buried in his pillow or in a good book. Trusts the good intent of the people around him- not that Grace is a person of course. And he can't let the children take advantage of his good nature. 

Pogo waits for a phone call that will not come to him. 

  * Luther races back through a crowd, into a building and under his father's arm.
  * He will pay for that later.
  * There's blood splattered like a blood bag exploded or a paint bomb. He can easily tell where his sister and brother had been. Five's legs shielding the tacky stain from spreading under her. Ben's nails scraping on linoleum. He shuts the door and gags out a smashed window. 
  * Luther is actually still panicking.



The Umbrella Academy has seen corpses before. They've killed people before. Ghosts hang around them to taunt Klaus and weep when even he ignores them. 

They've never been close enough to someone to care about their deaths before (that's a lie). Ben is a first.

Ben sets an unfortunate precedent.

Luther has lost his brother. He's missing, he's gone. Luther is standing in a room filled with his brother and his brother's last moments. Where was he? What use had Luther been? Who's next?

Ben...

  * And if course there's Reginald. 
  * The Umbrella Academy has left him to do their jobs. How unprofessional, they clearly needed to review their PR training again. Sensitivity training for the lot of them. Sometimes he despaired at the actions of the Academy, it had almost been easier when they were too young to be of any use. At least then they had remembered their training
  * NOt to be a heartless bastard but Reginald is currently unaware of the scope of this perceived failure.
  * He won't be receptive to their missing status. He will be displeased at the disappearance of his car.
  * And he will feel at most disappointment at Number Six's demise. Perhaps something that could be reckoned remorse. His other six projects will never see any sign of it. 



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not sure how clear it is that i dont know how to kill Ben but i dont know how ben died except it was bad enough that neither Luther nor Five is capable or articulating it


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is very not story, more than the other chapters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is all of it unless i learn to write this properly

Vanya doesn't hear about any of this. You could go so far as to say she actively avoids any news about the Academy even when it's all anyone around her can talk about. And if anything really bad happened, someone would call the school and she'd be picked up. Right?

Her school is pretty close to the New York(?) border with just enough security that her father is satisfied that she will not step a toe out of line. The other students say it's stifling- being under watch all day like some sort of the criminal is an outrage. Vanya keeps her mouth shut, she can't understand the fuss.

She walks circles around campus security and the teachers who might try to give her a hard time. She's used to the bullying and isolation (not quite) from the other students and she's aware of how to get her revenge.

The school pays attention to her lacklustre but consistent playing often using her as an example for the younger students. 

In theory, it's the right place for Vanya.

Despite the ways she fits in for once, she finds herself bored. Top of her classes in math, science, geography. Fluent in French, Spanish and Russian. An active participant in PE. It feels wrong.

  * She's made some friends that she's not really close to. Sometimes it's like being in the Academy, classes, constant uniform, meal times but then she remembers that her closest friends are no longer down the hall or up the stairs. Nothing dangerous happens except by accident.
  * and none of them can call casually or really send mail so



Luther is a sad boy and alone with his dad for once. They go home and nobody says anything about why his siblings aren't there. Or that one of them is never going to come back.

The calls comes when Luther is outside his dad's empty office. He goes in and answers before he can stop himself. 

*Insert short conversation about what's going on for them, what's going on for Luther, where they are, etc. Luther speaks to every sibling in the car and they tell him he needs to call for them at XXX tomorrow. Luther hasd to hang up because he thinks he's been caught.*

It's just Pogo. They have a heart to heart talk and then scatter as Hargreaves makes Luther give a mission breakdown.

  * Next day more annoying sibling antics in a stolen car. crossing the border with Allison's power. Buying breakfast, almost getting in a car accident due to argument.
  * Digging the car out of the ditch and finally getting to Vanya's school.
  * More Rumours, Diego and Klaus get swarmed, Five just fucks off to find Vanya's stuff.
  * Vanya feels pissed and humiliated by her siblings- marginalised? She feels small cause they showed up for seemingly no reason and now everyone is in awe of them and she regrets missing them at all.
  * Five shows up and they grab Vanya to actually leave now. 
  * Luther calls them at the school and they make Vanya talk to him - she's very fucking confused now. They're going to take another 'day'(not a day) to get back so they'll see him when they see him.
  * Vanya gets mad finally- stop treating me like a little child, we're the same age, can't believe you
  * She says some things that make it sound like they're freaks and she's ashamed to know them which none of them takes well. probably also something about Ben not being there that sounds like she's glad he's not there 
  * Five tells her that Ben's been dead since this time yesterday. which takes the wind out of everybody's sails.
  * Vanya lashes out at Five who lashes out right back and then they have to make the 12 (?) hour drive back to where they live with that between them.



Vanya knows she can't go back to the school because of this. She doesn't really want to believe them and she's kinda ignorant of how wrong it is that they came to get her and tell her in person

The car siblings are faking happiness for the civilians and pissed that Vanya got mad at them for getting her.   
None of them would have thought to tell her like this or to call if it weren't for Five. Diego thinks she's stuck up, Allison and Klaus are jealous and Luther would have trusted in his dad to call Vanya.   
They were all pleased to see her though which just made the situation worse with the car journey back.

About a week after the funeral Five pulls the time travel thing and it formalises the gap between Vanya and her remaining siblings. She takes more of her pills to compensate.

Everyone's mad at Klaus for talking about Ben's ghost or lying about Ben's ghost. (Not there yet, it's a long way home for Ben) Allison and Vanya no longer have a person in company and Allison starts trying to launch her career. Diego is angry and lashing out. Luther is angry and blaming himself.

And Five is in the apocalypse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the hotel where Ben dies is in Ithaca and a midpoint between Vanya's fancy boarding school and where I decided the Hargreeves live  
> \- I planned out a route and I lost it after chapter one  
> \- Vanya's school is in Maine so I think I forget them crossing the second border into Maine


End file.
